Posted on 06/01/2003 11:16:46 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
The standards of news journalism are in disarray. Media bias has been an issue for some time, but journalism loses all credibility when it fails to uphold basic standards of truthfulness. Some papers can no longer be trusted.
The downward spiral of the disgraced New York Times didn't start with journalist Jayson Blair, but he certainly accelerated it.
In case you've been in a coma all month, here's the rundown of what happened: Blair was taken on with the paper under the diversity program; he lied in dozens of his stories printed in the Times and was fired. The newspaper printed a 7,000-word story detailing the incidents and apologized to its readers. Blair later said that he "couldn't stop laughing" at the Times and bragged about fooling "some of the most brilliant people in journalism."
That was enough to bring the Old Gray Lady to her knees and swirl in the controversy. But Blair isn't the whole story. More and more problems are rising in the newspaper, from deliberately favoring Democrats in its polls to its columnists distorting facts in the opinions pages.
The provocative Times columnist Maureen Dowd slipped into controversy May 14 when distorting the meaning of a statement by the president. "'Al-Qaida is on the run,' President Bush said last week. 'That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly but surely being decimated ... they're not a problem anymore.'"
The full quote from President Bush reads, "Al-Qaida is on the run. That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly but surely being decimated. Right now, about half of all the top al-Qaida operatives are either jailed or dead. In either case, they're not a problem anymore."
Because of her abbreviation, the quote was changed. This is of course perfectly alright if the meaning of the quote remains the same. As you can see, that is not the case. Dowd chopped up the quote to support her twisted ideas. One statement; two completely different meanings.
Political analyst Dick Morris, in his upcoming book "Off With Their Heads," charges the New York Times with favoring Democrats in their polls. In a series of Times polls from December 2001 to November 2002 on topics of national political significance, Morris writes: "each one ... weighted up the number of Democrats and weighted down the number of Republicans – every single time!"
According to a report in Slate, Morris continues, "If the Times were using weighting to adjust for sampling error, surely the weightings would sometimes increase the number of Democrats and would sometimes decrease it. But what the Times has done – increasing the ratio of Democrats to Republicans each time – isn't weighting the sample. It's slanting it."
On May 23, the New York Times suspended Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Bragg. He had reported on a story in Apalachicola, Fla. However, reports conclude that Bragg was only in the town a few hours and the majority of the work was done by freelance journalist J. Wes Yoder. Still, the byline failed to mention that fact. Although this isn't exactly media bias or flat-out lying, the newspaper still suspended him, leaving Bragg "puzzled," according to a report by Newsday. Bragg quit the paper less than a week after his suspension.
Three of these four recent cases are extreme lapses in standards, and we could also go on to case by case of liberal media bias shown by the Times, but there is only so much space for one column. Conservatives have doubted for years whether what they might read in the New York Times is true. Now, all Americans have cause to wonder as well.
Hopefully the New York Times will one day return to the standards of excellence in journalism, but its reputation is in dire need of repair.
The Muslim gal in Florida is an American, Converted to Islam in 1997, Pled guilty to a Felony in 1999 ( aggravated battery on a foster child ) lets have the entire story if you are going to write, not just the writers version.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.